How much faith do you have?

There’s a lot of confusion over the word ‘faith’. We tend to think of it as a substance that we have to work up in ourselves to get something to happen.

Biblical faith is not a force that you’ve got to charge up. It’s a response to the person of Jesus.

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It’s less about your faith and more about who your faith is in.

“It is not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you. Strong faith in a weak branch is fatally inferior to weak faith in a strong branch.”

Tim Keller, The Reason for God

I trust my wife, not because I’ve been told to, but because my trust has grown as I have experienced that she is trustworthy. You will not grow in faith by constantly examining your faith. Your faith will grow as you examine the object of your faith - Jesus.

This should affect our prayer life in at least two ways:

1 - Vulnerability

We can talk and pray about our deepest fears, because we know that God acting in those situations is not dependent on how much faith we’ve drummed up.

2 - Boldness

We can be confident to pray bold prayers because Jesus can do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine (Eph 3:20).

We don’t need to fear ‘unanswered prayers’. Praying in faith is not ‘faith’ that the answer will pop out as we describe, but faith in the character of God - that He is in control and that He is good.